Ford Invests in Pivotal Software

Ford Motor Co. is investing $182 million in Palo Alto, Calif.-based Pivotal Software Inc. to help it develop new cloud-based mobility and connectivity technologies.

The Ford deal is part of a $253 million financing round for the 3-year-old Silicon Valley tech company. Other investors include Microsoft, General Electric, Vmware and EMC Corp., from which Pivotal was spun off in 2012.

As part of the investment, Ford and Pivotal will open three joint software labs in the U.S. and Europe. And Ford’s chief information officer Marcy Klevorn will join Pivotal’s board of directors.

The two companies have been working together for several years. Pivotal helped create FordPass, a smartphone app that allow users to access vehicle functions remotely and reserve and pay for parking.

Moving forward, Ford plans to tap into Pivotal’s expertise to help its own engineers learn how to better leverage and expand their software development skills from vehicle-focused technologies to consumer applications.

The carmaker plans to apply Pivotal’s methodology and analytic tools to its product development, engineering and information technology groups. This includes using Pivotal’s next-generation cloud platform and analytics capabilities to accelerate the development of new mobility projects such as the “dynamic shuttle” program at Ford’s facilities in Dearborn, Mich.